Them (ils)

Home invasion movies have a fairly rich tradition within the horror genre with such titles as Straw Dogs, Funny Games and Inside amongst their number. One of the most chilling, unsettling and downright scary of recent years has been this low budget offering from France.

Clémentine is a French teacher at a school in Bucharest whilst her partner, Marcus, stays at home in the Romanian countryside all day writing. They appear to have an idyllic existence, earning plenty of money and living in a large and beautiful home which they have all to themselves. However, one night all this changes as a group of youngsters find their way into the house and give Clémentine and Marcus a night they will never forget.

Ils (which translates as Them) is one of those films that is fairly light on plot, but what there is, is extremely effective. The two writers and directors, David Moreau and Xavier Palud, have created an extremely neat premise on which to hang the terror as the home in which our two protagonists live is undergoing some building work so there is some protective plastic sheeting hanging around and large areas that are unlit so it is a nightmarish scenario if you were to realise that that was someone in your home as they would have plenty of opportunities to hide.

The film begins with an extremely chilling sequence in which a car containing a mother and daughter swerves to avoid a strange figure in the middle of the road running through the woods and crashes into a metal streetlight. The mother gets out to see what's wrong with the engine as the car won't start and, when the girl hasn't heard from her, she gets out to sea where her mother is only to find that she's disappeared and her calls for help are mockingly whispered back to her by a disembodied voices somewhere in the woods, along with a clackclackclackclackclack of a wooden football rattle. When the girl, now frightened out of her wits, returns to the car, it is pelted with mud and, as she tries to contact the police, she is strangled to death.


The next day, Clémentine is driving home from work and passes the car, now surrounded by police and about to be towed away, completely unaware of what transpired of the night before. Arriving home, she is greeted by Marcus who was working (and playing pinball) on his laptop and the two enjoy a lazy evening in watching television and having a nice meal. At some point during the night, Clémentine awakens as there is a noise outside and, when they go down to investigate, they find her car has been moved away from the house and, when Marcus approaches, it is driven off at high speed.

When they return upstairs, Marcus doesn't stay long as there are sounds coming from downstairs and he finds the TV set has been turned back on. A sudden noise startles him and he reactively swings for it only to smash a French door which swings into his back him and one of the broken shards of glass digs into his right leg. Somehow, he manages to get back upstairs to the bedroom and to Clémentine and, with the door locked, they try to figure out how to leave the house. Even when they get outside and into the woods, with Marcus unable to move freely and Clémentine extremely nervous, it isn't going to be easy to escape 'them'.


I bought this on DVD several years ago and have watched it quite a few times since then, every time finding it to be an extremely effecting and nerve jangling watch. The number of horror films that maintain the ability to shock and scare after their initial viewing is small, so it is a testament to the quality of the film that each viewing is almost as powerful as the last.

Moreau and Palud have crafted an extremely tense and volatile situation here, and one that just about everyone will be able to identify. We come home expecting to feel safe and secure in our house so twisting this into something else, as many other films do, a 'What if...' situation makes the film all the more terrifying. This is why films like Jaws, The Birds and Psycho work as the filmmakers have taken an everyday situation and given it a slight change so that you are placed in the same situation as the protagonists. As Stephen Spielberg's breakthrough hit made people afraid to swim in the ocean and Alfred Hitchcock's two outright horror films ensured audiences would never look at a seagull or crow again and think twice before stepping into the shower, Moreau and Palud have virtually guaranteed that anyone watching this film (even in the comfort of their own home) would keep an extra set of lights on at night and check behind every door and inside every cupboard before retiring to bed.

Helping the film are the tremendously naturalistic performances by Olivia Bonamy and Michael Cohen as the two leads whilst the four adolescents should become part of horror movie legend as they are, collectively, a terrific 'monster'.

The Disc

Extra Features
Making of "Them" is a decent, 26 minute EPK piece, which shifts between B-roll footage and interviews with the two directors at the two lead actors (each pair were filmed separately). It shows what the shoot was like, how the actors worked together at how the script was written.

The interview with composer René-Marc Bini is conducted entirely in French but, unlike the Making of, it isn't subtitled so unless you are fluent in French you may only be to pick out several words or phrases. Even if you will not understand a word of what he says, it is worth a look because the piece includes several scenes with only the score running so you really get a deeper appreciation of the music. Additionally, there is one scene that plays just with the music and the just with the sound effects before running with everything.

Clémentine's Ordeal is a 7 minute piece looking at one of the more harrowing scenes in the film and shows exactly what Olivia Bonamy went through for such a brief moment in the film.

As for the Police Press Conference, well it's pretty unusual as it is an appeal for information by Clémentine's sister who, by the way she speaks, appears to have been born and bred in England!

Footage Recovered from the Original Location is a trailer that purports to be comprised of real footage from the location where a spirit appears.

The Awful Truth is a text only piece, written by Harold Briley, the former BBC correspondent to Romania, who visits the street children who are a legacy of Ceausescu's Romania and the disparity in where he spent his country's money which has a devastating effect even now.

Marketing Campaign Gallery is, as the title suggests, a collection of trailers, TV spots and other marketing campaign material for the British theatrical release.


The Picture
An extremely impressive and finely detailed widescreen picture which, as just about the entire film takes place at night, needed to be clear in low light situations and, fortunately, it is exactly that. Although the contrast levels aren't up there with a high definition transfer, they do the job extremely well and whatever lack of clarity there is just adds to the overall sense of the unknown as you are never quite sure whether that dark image behind the sheet is the shadow of something outside or a piece of furniture or whether it's someone standing there, ready to pounce. For something shot on DV rather than film, the image quality is consistently good although there was one scene that the digital technology didn't handle particularly well as it tried to cope simultaneously with both detail in the dark and extremely bright light.

The SFX make-up applied to Michael Cohen is extremely realistic and you really believe that Lucas has a piece of glass sticking out of his leg. As the film progresses, the attention paid to continuity was obviously extremely high as the couple become increasingly dirty and bloody and I didn't notice any glaring continuity errors, such as a dirty item of clothing becoming clean and then dirty again -- that happens several times in Die Hard with Bruce Willis' vest!


The Sound
As the bulk of the horror comes from very quiet sounds that could represent the arrival of one of the adolescents or just the wind blowing something, you really need an all encompassing 5.1 surround track in which every speaker is constantly in use. There is one scene in the woods where all you can hear are Clémentine's footsteps, twigs snapping all around you and the clackclackclackclack of the rattle Thankfully, with this terrific Dolby Digital 5.1 track, that's exactly what you get and there are some scenes that are unbelievably tense just because of the sound design. One thing is for certain, when you've finished watching this, an old-fashioned wooden football rattle won't sound the same way again!

Keeping the tension at an unbearably high level is the tremendous score by René-Marc Bini whose work really is tremendous and something you appreciate when you've seen the film a few times so are less on edge and are able to appreciate things like the music, the sound design, the cinematography and set design, aspects that really were part of the ordeal the first time round when you're too busy trying to keep your body in check that really analyse the movie.


Final Thoughts
Ils is one of the more impressive of the new wave of European horror films that have been spearheaded by titles like Haute Tension, Funny Games and Martyrs. This may not have had the budget or fanfare of the other titles, but it is one that I'm glad I stumbled upon and is one of the few films that is guaranteed to keep me on edge for at least two thirds of its running time. If you like European horror, or horror films in general, this is definitely one to check out as it's one of the most impressive genre films of the last decade. It certainly is an ordeal, but one that you will like and appreciate many times. It claims to be based on true events and, if that is indeed the case, it makes the film even more chilling.